Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Tuesday Morning

From the Book of Common Prayer:
O God, you have made of one blood all the peoples of the earth, and sent your blessed Son to preach peace to those who are far off and to those who are near: Grant that people everywhere may seek after you and find you; bring the nations into your fold; pour out your Spirit upon all flesh; and hasten the coming of your kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
A beauty in praying the Liturgical Hours is their ability  give us a sort of lay line in charting the direction of our day.  And for me, I see the Office Morning Prayer as a sort of Laying the Keel of the ship that will take us on through to the nighttime.  The particular Collect seemed to jump from the pages this morning, especially in light the past Sunday's "Taste of Heaven" Gathering.  I'm tying this Collect to the recent gathering as it was Pastor Tony Addinall of All Nation's Church of God who captured this truth in his opening invocation.

The prayer opens with the declaration that the Almighty has created for Himself, a species (if you'll have it), of one blood.  He then at the appointed time sent his very expression, His son, to bring redemption to this fallen people who were of one blood.  Apprehending this truth is the beginning of the demolition of the false barriers which divide us.  Its the wrecking ball that demolishes the barriers of ignorance, fear, mistrust and hatred.

We can't affect this in our own.  It is only by the power and agency of the Almighty that humanity might be moved to seek God, and be drawn to Him. Yet in this, He has called us to be the transmission medium for His call to go forward and be heard by a world that's not intuitively listening for this call of the one God to His one people. 

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